Kristian Hollins presents at the Australian Institute for Administrative Law’s National Conference

RegNet PhD Scholar and Sir Roland Wilson Scholar Kristian Hollins recently presented their ongoing research to the Australian Institute for Administrative Law’s National Conference in Perth.

Hosted this year at the University of Western Australia, the conference attracts public law practitioners and academics from across the country, with a strong focus on contemporary challenges in administrative decision-making.

Kristian’s paper, Universal Tests, Individualised Justice: Legal Fictions as Regulators of Human Variation in Administrative Law, examined how fictive legal actors, such as the ‘reasonable person’, function as stabilising tools in administrative reasoning. Drawing on their broader research into refugee status determination, the presentation highlighted how these fictions shape what kinds of claims are intelligible, what forms of narrative are deemed credible, and how institutional logics manage the messiness of real human variation.

“Fictions like the reasonable person are essential for facilitating legal intelligibility, but they also manage a persistent tension in administrative justice: how universal legal standards can be meaningfully applied to the complex variability of human experience. They make discretionary systems appear coherent and consistent, but in doing so, they also quietly constrain what may be recognised within the law,” Kristian said. 

The presentation formed part of their broader research exploring how discretionary reasoning and institutional norms co-produce legality under conditions of uncertainty. Kristian’s work sits at the intersection of doctrinal law, legal sociology, critical theory and public administration, bringing deep conceptual questions to some of the most complex terrains of bureaucratic practice.